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Monday, December 31, 2012

The new ikan D7w IPS panel field monitor is here. First revealed at NAB 2012, this monitor comes with all the bells and whistles you would want packed into a nice 7 inch 1280 x 800 HD screen. It has waveform, vector scope, RGB parade, 4 panel view and priority view. Add to that peaking, pixel to pixel, false color, clip guides and DSLR scaling all with a viewing angle of 178 degrees. There's 3G SDI and HDMI loop thru, a headphone jack and a mini USB port for firmware updates. I tested a BP-950G battery which lasted about 3 1/2 hours.

9. Canon 5D Mark III: Does More, Costs More. New on the site this year is Michael Murie’s column, “The Week in Cameras.” The Alexa aside, this post demonstrates our independent community’s continued interest in the DSLR form factor. Murie assessed what was upgraded in this camera and what wasn’t a few days after its announcement.

Since the Francier with it’s built-in drag works well with long lenses zoomed in but is pretty heavy and can’t do a whip pan to save it’s life, I went with the Manfrotto 701HDV Pro Fluid head Mini because of two reasons; the 701 is very light which works great with my new light weight Induro tripod for traveling, and the second reason is it works fine for wide angle shots that require fast movement.

Since the release of SliderPLUS+ there has been a wide interest and many filmmakers were very enthusiastic to see the worlds first slider that can move twice its length. Up till now we only had the chance to show the virtual images of the SliderPLUS+ but now we are happy to share you the first demo video showing a real SliderPLUS+ fully working in action.

2. It’s who you know, not what you know.A good political mind is a far better asset to a budding filmmaker than anything else. Get really good at building relationships with the people that will matter to your career; distributors, sales agents and journalist. While you are at it, find out who the hot new PR’s are, and budget their fees into your monthly budget.

Whether or not you need IR filtration may be as much about your own preference and tastes as it is about your budget and gear — some cameras will hold up better to post correction of IR pollution than others, so you’ll have to use your own judgment depending on what you’re using.

3D integration is a technique used for combining real live footage with virtual elements that were created, animated and rendered inside a 3D program.Most modern television shows and films contain some sort of 3D integration effects, but depending on how well they are done, you may not even notice 3D integration is a complicated process, but can be used to create anything you can possibly imagine: from super slow motion 3D bullets to alien planets or strange creatures tearing down entire cities! If you can imagine it you can – theoretically – create the effect

An interesting note about Canon, if you remove the lowend of the DSLR market (Rebels, D3xxx/D5xxx), Canon’s marketshare increases. I imagine the 5D Mark III plays a big part in that, as well as the EOS-1D X.

The video above is only 44 seconds long, but we’ll bet it’ll take up at least a minute and a half of your time — you’ll just have to watch it twice. It was created by British psychological professor Richard Wiseman, and demonstrates the power of perspective. It’s titled, “Assumptions.”

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Digital Asset Management Solutions

Learn how to manage, access and protect all of your digital assets with an overview of the CatDV 10 media asset management system along with shared storage options from
SNS and archive appliances from Cache-A presented by JB&A’s Jeremy Strootman.

WEDNESDAY JAN 23
Pubnight: 6–8pm Pizza + Beer

Sony F5 And F55 Overview

Join Sony’s Senior Product Manager, Juan Martinez for an in-depth look at the new F5 and F55 large sensor cameras with 4K Super35mm CMOS sensors delivering images with higher contrast, rich color reproduction and greater clarity for every production application.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Ergonomics and ease of use.This is a big one, so I I’m going to start here. Shooting all day handheld is hard enough. With the way the C100 is laid out it’s the most ergonomic camera I have used so far, straight out of the box with no add-ons. Here is why:

The last thing that needs to happen before you head out to set, or leave for remote field work, is to make sure that your media is formatted properly. This is especially true if you will not have access to a DIT, or a computer system, as you cannot erase cards in the camera. As of this writing, that formatting needs to be HSF+, so you will need a Mac to format the drives correctly.

Not too long ago I put together a video blog on how to use the Gemini 4:4:4 to record video and ARRIRAW. Since that time, Convergent Design has added the ability to record Canon Raw from the C500 to the Gemini. In my video I give a quick demonstration of the Gemini working with the C500, and then show how to import footage from the Gemini via their Transfer Station and a Seagate Go Flex adapter.

This spring, directors pursuing their big breaks will get invaluable hands-on time with tools needed in order to bring their visions to life. For the first time in 2013, SXSW Film will present the inaugural Come & Capture Film Factory, an event that will run over the course of four days during SXSW, from March 9 until March 12.

Canon also announced the 4K C500 but spoiled it by taking off the hand grip one of the best features when using the Canon C300. Canon also decided to make the C500 2K recordable internally leaving you the expense of having to buy an external 4K recorder, this in my opinion is the sole reason for the C500 sluggish sales.

"At this time we have no update regarding the status of the EOS 5D Mark II DSLR camera," a Canon U.S.A. spokesperson told Imaging Resource. "This product has been faithfully selling in the market since 2008 and has helped usher in a new era for Canon with the introduction of the Cinema EOS System."

This article is my account of using the C300 to shoot a short film. It is a complete chronicle of the effort, including stills and video clips. For those who would prefer to skip ahead, I’ve broken the piece down into hyper-linked sections:

While "The Avengers" posed many visual efffects challenges, one of the larger challenges was pulling together the "tie-in" shot during the third act of the film. Rather than frames, this single shot is measured in minutes on screen and is one of the longest effects shots in the film. It incorporates both practical special effects and extensive digital visual effects by ILM. The New York City environment that serves as the setting for this shot (and virtaully the entire alien invasion) is computer generated by the visual effects team at ILM.

Shot entirely on the RED Epic and using customizable underwater housing, submersible speakers, surface monitoring and some amazing breath holding, this series is one of the most impressive indie film series I have had the pleasure of viewing.

"There's no question that methodology is controversial but there was no debate about whether or not to include it in the movie because it's part of the history," she said. "That's an element we were working with. It was a question of working with the material and finding the right tone and balance. And also exploring other methodologies. Over the course of the decade many different approaches were utilized. Throughout that decade you see all the permutations and surveillance that were utilized. And the rest is history. It was all about finding the right balance."

I think I can explain all of this with a single thesis: Smart TVs are the literal, biblical devil. (That may be overly broad. Perhaps they are merely demonic.) But the bottom line is that smart TVs typically have baffling interfaces that make the act of simply finding and watching your favorite stuff more difficult, not less.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

I just bought a Roku LT Streaming Playerplayer. I bought the “cheap” RT model, which is limited to 720P, partly because Amazon was having a sale on it, and partly because I didn’t really think I’d see much difference between 720P and 1080P. The 720P looks pretty good to me, but then I watch DVDs quite happily as well.

I also have a first generation Apple TV, which I don’t use as much as I had originally thought I would. I use it to occasionally rent a movie, but I do that so infrequently you could probably count the number of movies I’ve rented this past year on the fingers of one hand.

The reason I bought the Roku was not because I was looking to replace the Apply TV, or I was unhappy with it in any way. Rather, I got it because I have an Amazon Prime membership, and the Roku, unlike the Apple TV, will stream Amazon movies.

And with Amazon Prime you get access to quite a few movies and TV shows for free. It’s not endless, but as a free add-on (free after the $50 for the box, and $75 for Amazon Prime I’m already playing) it’s pretty good value! I’ve also watched Amazon movies on my MacBook, and even on the iPad (using the Amazon player app). Both work very well, but sometimes I’d rather just watch a movie on TV.

The player and it's remote

Installation is simple, though I wish it had come with an HDMI Cable rather than the old RCA cable. I had to spend another $5 to buy a cable from Amazon. The power supply is in a small brick attached to the power plug, which is always problematic when you are plugging them into a power strip.

When you set up the box, you do have to register it with Roku, and give them a credit card. I actually used a Gift Card that I had to register the device.

Operation is simple and straightforward. It’s much like navigating the Apple TV, though when scrolling through a list of movies it has the habit of repeating the same movie multiple times in the list (at different places.) That’s probably an Amazon issue rather than a Roku one.

Cables, adapter and batteries for the remote are the only other parts included

The image quality at 720P on my TV is very good. I watched four movies over the course of about five days, and they all played well except for one. Towards the end of Clear and Present Danger the movie started hiccupping every minute or so, and even flashed to a green frame at one point. I don’t know whether there were problems with the download, the transmission, or the encryption of the movie. It’s not something I’ve had happen with Apple TV; though I have had that pause because it was unable to complete downloading a movie, but it’s never hiccupped. I’ll be interested to see how often this problem occurs.

But if you have Amazon Prime and haven’t been making use of the free movies, then I’d recommend this device.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

1. The end of filmFilm’s been having a tough time of it, but did anyone in 2011 think that 2012 would be the year that film would roll over and die?This was the year that Kodak went bankrupt, Fuji announced they would cease production of motion picture film, and the major film companies announced the timetable for moving toward 100% digital distribution. It was also the year that a James Bond movie was shot digitally.

I have been very impressed with the performance and look of this lens. Its ultra sharp wide open which in itself is amazing. There is also very little if any noticeable chromatic aberration. Now this is normally a problem with very fast lenses. It seems very hard for lens manufacturers to get sharpness combined with lack of chromatic aberration. SLR MAGIC seems to have got this lens spot on.

1. Stay Away from "the News"The news is mostly not news. Believe me, I traffic in this stuff online and on-air every day. But let's say it was all "real news"...then what? It isn't as though you're able to react to it, at least not all of it. In fact, the less of it you react to, the better off you probably are. My friend David Merkel talks about making as few decisions as possible, thus limiting the amount of bad or forced ones. This is the kind of advice that sounds so simple and obvious that it can't possibly be true - but it actually is true.

Terrio is no overnight success as you’ll learn from watching the video, even though Argo marks the first time many of us have noticed his writing talents. So keep writing, because overnight success stories like this are usually a decade in the making.

The film was conceived before the raid on bin Laden’s compound occurred. It was to be about the hunt, but not finding him, after a decade of searching. The SEAL raid changed the direction of the film, but Bigelow and Boal still felt that the story to be told was in the work done on the ground by intelligence operatives that led to the raid.

We had, coincidentally, just purchased a full set of Duclos Cine-Mod Leica Rs for use with a Canon mount. We have both PL and Canon mounts for our Epics, and we prefer manual lenses — well, because they’re manual. We used those on the Blackmagic EF-mount camera. They’re not electronic, so they don’t take advantage of any of the on-board iris capabilities.

The BMCC's sensor size translates to a "crop factor" of about 2.3 versus full-frame sensors. That means DPs are packing lenses that tend to the wide side. Solorio reports getting the "most pleasing" results on the wide side with the Sigma 8-16mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom, and suggests the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 as a somewhat faster lens.

The other Huge advantage that the 1DC has over its rival 4K cameras is the expanded sensitivity of the latest sensor technology from Canon. The new benchmark achieved by 5Dm3 in low light performance has been raised again here with very useable vision captured as high as 12,800 in our testing. This is a big point to note when comparing the low light nature of RED cameras and another reason this camera is the obvious choice for quickly changing environments where you have little or no time to “light”.

Recording Location. Generally, you have the right to video at or from public places such as public streets, parks, and public events. However, your subjects also have privacy rights. You do not have the right to record at or from private places such as someone's home or business, without a signed release.

It’s definitely not a perfect camera. The main downside is that Canon’s Marketing Department were overzealous in crippling the C100 to protect the C300 – 720p50/60 is the standard for DVD material (great SD with web friendly HD) but is absent from the C100. There’s no intervalometer even though there’s a half-hearted Slow Shutter mode. The EVF is barely adequate for ensuring that the camera is pointing in the right direction, and neither the EVF or the Panel should be trusted for exposure and colour balance.

Monday, December 24, 2012

The limited availability of talent has been a notable factor in Buono's mind-set about gear. "My overriding goal has been an evolution toward flexibility," he says. "Working with so many great writers, performers and guest hosts, we have to be able to react to improvisation quickly. The last thing I want to tell the director or writers is, 'I need another 20 minutes to re-light if we want to shoot it that way.'

Let down by both Apple and Microsoft, I researched a third solution. A Mac Pro without the unattainable price tag. As a Macbook Pro user, the install files for the latest OSX – Mountain Lion were downloadable from the App Store since I’d already purchased it. I used UniBeast to install these on my PC. The disclaimer is that this is against the EULA (End User License Agreement) of OS X so not an officially supported solution.

I’m sure I don’t need to get any more sentimental about this announcement — the implications of the news speaks for itself. Many of us likely owe our initial discovery and subsequent readership of this site to this very camera. Ironically, given the force of change this workhorse exerted on the low-budget world, this is a rather unceremonious way to break the news.

From being an up and coming film editor on films such as Annapolis, Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift and Fast Five to Quentin Tarantino’s man in the cutting room on Django Unchained. Fred Raskin has earned his strips by assisting on Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2 and as additional editor on Punch Drunk Love. Now he has earned his spot in one of the most exciting cutting rooms in the world.In this Episode Raskin and Gordon talk about getting into the business, being a part of the Fast and the Furious series and of course teaming up with Quentin Tarantino.

On this weeks episode of Studio School Josh continues the basics with some simple camera movement techniques. We discuss Zooming or Punching as well as Dolly-ing or Pushing. A few dolly techniques are also discussed such as Tracking, Counter-moving, Reveal, and Circles. Then we combine the Zoom and Dolly for a technique called the Push-Pull.

Each year, action-camera technology continues to improve and action-camera popularity continues to grow. Most major camcorder manufacturers now have at least one action camera, and there are a handful of other companies that specialize exclusively in action cameras and accessories for those cameras. Companies like GoPro, Drift and Contour have had the most success because they dedicate the bulk of their research to developing exactly the sort of performance the customer wants.

Friday, December 21, 2012

1. Do the Budget Yourself
On small indie projects, everyone in the crew usually ends up wearing a variety of hats. Of the various roles I took on, the one that I found to be particularly instructive was that of the Unit Production Manager; that crew member who – among other things – writes up the budget.

Seriously, you should have seen Patrick when we gave him $26 and sent him to Home Depot – he was like a kid on Christmas morning! ;)We wanted to show you that great interview lighting can be achieved on almost nothing (you can judge for yourself in our example).

The uncoated Samyang lenses are a great solution for achieving lens flare and a more vintage look using low-cost DSLR lenses according to Shoot Blue. All lenses are fully manual ‘cine-style’ and fitted with focus & iris gear rings. Set includes 14mm, 24mm & 35mm focal lengths.

A major event occurred today in the creative industry landscape: Adobe has acquired Behance, a juggernaut portfolio-sharing service used by many photographers to showcase their work.Based in New York, Behance has been growing like a weed since it launched back in 2006, and last month served upwards of 90 million views of the 3 million projects and 30 million images it hosts.

Now we have confirmation that Canon has a firmware update that supposedly fixes this issue, but not only are you going to have a tough time getting it, but you might even have a hard time getting a Canon representative to acknowledge that it exists.

The $699 RX100 was easily the most powerful camera per square inch and per dollar in 2012. Of course you are stuck with the zoom lens, but it is a rather good one. Image quality in stills mode is similar to the class leading Canon G1X but the RX100 is more innovative. It is smaller, genuinely pocketable, even walletable. Better lens, higher resolution, RGBW screen, faster AF and better video mode.

We've made a list. We've checked it twice. And it contains six tips that will help turn your holiday video into an artfully captured, skillfully edited memory to cherish forever. Whether you're a novice with a point-and-shoot, a regular ol' iPhoner, or a pro with a DSLR, follow these simple tips to master the art of the holiday video. Consider it our gift to you. You're welcome.

The bottom line here is that higher frame rates are like other advancements, there will be a short period while the technology ramps up to meet expectations. That goes for all elements of the process becoming better (including make-up effects) in order to pivot toward the strengths of 48 or 60FPS. If that happens, if 48FPS becomes the go-to for most directors, hopefully our eyes will adjust and it will be like adding color to a black-and-white world.

Hon Hai Precision, better known as Foxconn, is already the world's largest electronics manufacturer. Chances are if you've got a laptop, console or smartphone it was assembled in one of the company's many Chinese factories.

I have always been interested in movies, particularly stunts in movies because my Dad, Jimmy Broyden, is a veteran Canadian stuntman and stunt coordinator of 20 years. I have been performing stunts ever since I can remember but I started to be interested in filmmaking when my Dad would get me to sit with him and study stunts in movies.

My final answer: if HFR does become more of a standard, then we’ll all stop paying attention to the new technique, and perhaps be able to refocus on story. The points I make above about being able to choose where I look, and what I choose to focus on and getting lost in any part of the frame, and becoming more immersed by seeing "less" do ultimately make me doubt this will happen until the 3D process as whole gets much much better.

Let’s Cook | Stu Maschwitz | prolostA good write-up on using the Blackmagic Cinema Camera for the first time:

As perfectly expressed by Vincent Laforet (the generous loaner of this particular BMC), the Blackmagic Cinema Camera is a perplexing mix of unmatched bang-for-the-buck, along with some maddening shortcomings and inscrutable design decisions.

Made with After Effects | Chris Meyer | ProVideo CoalitionSend in clips for this 'competition.' Deadline is January 9:

We are happy to announce that for the third year in a row, we will be working with the folks from motion for their annual Made with After Effects show. Upload a piece up to 3 minutes long that heavily involved After Effects in creation, and you will have a chance to win prizes and get some well-deserved public recognition.

Digital Bolex Xmas Ornament | ThingverseA cute little 3D ornament...all you need is a 3D printer. Though you could probably make it out of cardboard....

This ornament is based on an illustration done for the Digital Bolex coloring book.

Architecturally, Thunderbolt is built for higher speeds than USB 3.0. My recommendation is use Thunderbolt for the best performance and reliability. If you need PC compatibility, use USB 3. Thunderbolt for Windows is coming soon and, when it arrives, is the best choice for maximum performance.

There was previously word on Kodak selling their patents, and now the company has officially sold its digital imaging patent collection to 12 big name companies such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft, to name a few. Every company who backed Intellectual Ventures’ and RPX Corporation’s bid will receive rights to Kodak’s intellectual property.

Blackmagic Design today announced a new lower price on its popular Compact Videohub to $2,995. Compact Videohub features 3 Gb/s SDI, ASI, auto switching SD, HD and 3 Gb/s SDI formats, full SDI re-clocking, USB, redundant power inputs, ethernet and serial router control for only $2,995.

Many photographers keep some sort of filter on their lenses at all times — even if it's just a UV filter to stop the glass from getting scratched. But what do you do when a filter gets hopelessly stuck? Photographer Craig Pulsifer was faced with exactly that problem, and the method he says was advised by a Canon Professional Service technician is more than a little scary.

My preference is to record most things (though not fuzz guitars) clean and flat. You can add a little grit later to taste when mixing, but you can’t take it away if you added too much when recording. To my way of thinking, any preamp that is not clean and flat is colored, and I’d rather add color later when I can hear all of the parts in context. A coloration that sounds good in isolation may sound bad in the mix, and vice versa.

Convinced that the old ways of releasing art-house movies were no longer profitable, Burns set out to build his own release models as a self-distributor focused on digitally streaming movies to multiple platforms via iTunes, Google play and VOD all with the publicity boost from his celebrity profile.

Pro Video Coalition's own Steve Hullfish brought the art of color correction from the dark arts to the light of day in 2002 with his book Color Correction for Digital Video: Using Desktop Tools to Perfect Your Image (now in its 2nd Edition), followed in 2008 by The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction (2nd Edition just released). At this special Editors' Lounge, Steve Hullfish gave a boost to attendee's color correction skills by revealing his tips and tricks in an up close and personal presentation.

This is a great sign, and it means that we are going to see regular and consistent updates for the camera. The other big update, exFAT support, means the drives will now work natively with Windows machines, so you won’t have to use any software to read the drives if you’re not already on a Mac.

The images below were shot by my students during a RAW workshop held at 24/7 Drama in London The lighting is deliberately mixed, tungsten indoors, daylight outside. Click on the JPG to get a 1920 * 1080 DPX The DPX's were created in Resolve using flat settings for each camera. The lighting was varying in the background and the frames were not shot cincurrently.

In this episode of Red Giant TV, Aharon Rabinowitz walks you through the workflow used to create realistic fire for our film Tempo. He'll be using a combination of real fire footage, Trapcode Particular, and some 3rd Party plug-ins from Re:VisionFX.

The FS700 might have been forgotten and sidelined with all the fuss about the “new F” but it’s probably the cheapest route out there to achieve 4k RAW, and it’s still a super portable little camera capable of achieving really impressive high speed 1080p video right out of the box!

Mr. Scorsese is no stranger to digital, having shot on the Arri Alexa in 3D for Hugo, but a conscious decision was made by him and his DP Rodrigo Prieto to choose the formats that most suited the project. Many factors go into the camera choice at that level, but when cost is rarely a deciding factor on multi-million dollar movies, even getting a bunch of free ones probably wouldn’t do much to persuade a production like this (though a serious monetary investment might).

You can now download a dedicated YouTube camera app – YouTube Capture – for iPhone and iPod touch. The app lets you record a video clip and right after you are done filming, you can write a caption, select which networks you want to share to, and publish.

Is writing a quick "thank you" email a proper form of business etiquette, or just another frivolous piece of inbox clutter we could do without? In this piece, Peter Bregman of the Harvard Business Review examines how important thanking others via email can be.

Monday, December 17, 2012

As the first movie in wide release to be shot and shown in 48p, the acceptance – or success – of the movie is being closely tied to the future adoption of 48p. This is, of course, ridiculous. The success or failure of a single film is unlikely to define the future of a format. But we’re still left with the question: Is 48p (or High Frame Rates) a good thing, a bad thing, or just different? And why does this discussion feel suspiciously like the one about 3D?

Well, the stereoscopic 3D execution is not perfect, with numerous stereo window violations and some depth map/inversion errors on dimensionalized VFX shots. These are issues that left me with strained eye muscles (specifically in my right eye), and cannot be remedied by viewing the HFR version. However, overall the film has many good S3D moments and the visual effects (in 24 fps) are spectacular, but they start to show their seams at 48 fps.

If you can’t get around the usability issues, that’s perfectly understandable, but anything else that would make this camera better hardware-wise would make it that much more expensive. I don’t think this camera is all that appealing at $6,000-$10,000, but for $3,000, it’s an absolute steal to get footage that has just about as much resolution at 1080 and nearly as much dynamic range as cameras costing 10-20 times as much.

In this short, edited preview, Rule’s Equipment Manager, Adam Van Voorhis, and NoFilmSchool’s Managing Editor, Joe Marine, highlight key elements featured in their 2-hour Learning Lab session on the Blackmagic Cinema Camera. For more details, watch the 2-hour version! No time? Take a look at key aspects of the camera here!

I can’t stress enough the need to ‘balance’ the system to get proper performance. There’s never a danger of having “Too much RAM”, but too many processors is not necessarily a good thing!You can check this on your system – using the stock effects, when you render previews or render your output files, you should see all the CPU cores being utilized. They won’t exactly be used the same amount, but roughly, they all should be about the same for common tasks.

There will be significant progress made towards a new monetization model beyond the traditional ad-supported and subscription service ones. The American household spends, on average, nearly five hours per day watching video content. As such it is one of the best methods we know for generating product interest.

To Form a More Perfect | Dylan Callaghan | Writers Guild of America
Interview with Lincoln scriptwriter Tony Kushner:

My initial plan was to do September of 1863 all the way to the end and that proved to be just completely impossible. It was much too much material. Then after the [Writers] Guild strike in '07-'08, when I went back to work on it, I had a realization that I could focus just on the last four months and that pretty much every theme I'd begun to see as recurrent in the four years of Lincoln's administration occurred during that four-month period.

File this under 'News that's not news': Adobe has released updates to some Creative Suite applications that are available only to people who are subscribing to the Creative Suite. If you purchased the suite outright, you won't be getting this update (at least, not immediately.)

Lots of people are complaining (Adobe announces updates for cloud members only! | HD Warrior) but if you read Adobe's press releases, or attended any of their presentations when they announced CS6, you couldn't have missed that Adobe explicitly signaled their intention to do this.

Of course, they didn't phrase it as "we are going to release new features only to subscribers." Instead, they explained that having people subscribe would enable them to offer new features much faster.....[it's an accounting thing, or something...-Ed]

For Adobe it's a win-win situation:

Subscribers get frequent updates, which encourages customers to switch to the subscription model.

The subscription model makes it harder to illegally copy software

Adobe gets a more consistent revenue stream.

It ties their customers closer to them. Customers who previously bought every second or third update who convert to a subscription model will now be paying every year.

If a customer wants to switch to another platform, they are still tied to Adobe; they won't be able to open their older projects if they suspend their subscription. So if you switched to Avid, you'd still want to keep subscribing to Premiere for some time to come.

A subscription also means that customers are less likely to flee when the price increases. Sure, they will complain, but they can't just sit on their hands and not buy the next release if they think the price is too high. They'll have to keep paying that monthly subscription or they won't be able to launch their copy of Photoshop or Premiere.

Abelcine have listed the street price for the Sony PMW-F5 and PMW-F55 CineAlta cameras and it is pretty darn good. Forget the official suggested list price from Sony which saw the PMW-F5 CineAlta 4K Camera at $19,400, and the PMW-F55 CineAlta 4K Camera at $34,900.

Doug Wellman, assistant dean at the USC School, said it best: “these pieces that we shot really highlight the full gamut of the cameras’ capabilities, and the flexibility and performance they can offer on location.”

I am typing this inside a steel and concrete re-enforced building. All I can hear is the howling of the wind outside and the pop of rebar contracting from inside the bowels of the bunker-like structure. The temperature outside is 6 degrees F and the windchill is -25 at 60 miles per hour sustained.

Schilowitz agrees: “A lot of the industry is depending on what happens to The Hobbit and asking whether people will embrace it or love it; will they get what Peter Jackson gets? I think the biggest thing that people have to understand is you are going to have to watch this more than a few minutes to start to really understand why this is so amazing and so powerful.”

Made in Jersey had just two airings on CBS this fall before it was yanked by the network for failing to draw an audience. But the legal drama may be long remembered in Hollywood production circles as one of the first big-budget TV show to be shot in 4K.

Last month I was invited by Panasonic to shoot a documentary for a skatepark in Hamburg, as an opportunity to test out the GH3 and offer some feedback on the camera. [...] How does the GH3 compare to it’s main rival in the Canon camp for video, the 5D Mark III? Have a look at the next video for some clues.

“The main reason behind having the anti-reflective lens coatings removed from the Samyang DSLR lens was to produce a more unique visual look when using modern & affordable DSLR lenses. It’s something of an experiment – this has not been done before with these type of lenses, and the initial lens test results look extremely good.

I treat each new digital camera that comes out as a new film emulsion, one that needs to be tested before I can use it to help tell my stories. Finding out its strengths and its weaknesses is all part of the process. There are three parts to the process. The first is to find the sensitivity of the sensor. Part two is the latitude of the sensor. Part three is taking your camera on location to put it through the paces in different lighting scenarios, both day and night.

I was asked the other day when Adobe will offer a 4k output from the H.264 encoder. The answer is simple – it’s there today!Currently, the Media Encoder (and, by association, Premiere Pro) doesn’t ship with presets for 4k H.264 output, simply because it’s not a common enough format. But it’s reasonably simple to make your own.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

When confronted with this thought, my immediate answer to myself is, independent film is an addiction! The problem is, we’re addicted to making it, not that other people are addicted to watching it.
But what if we stole a page from video game designers or the cliffhangers of cable drama? What would we have to do to make independent film an ingrained activity? An addiction?

Poor old Fugly H.264, that brown paper bag wearing misfit is getting pushed out the door as the ugly lights are turned on. You’re going home with a new partner that H.265 in the corner you have had your eye on all night. High Efficiency Video Coding HEVC or MPEG-H Part 2 is the follow up to H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC Advanced Video Coding standard for video compression.

Prior to Final Cut Pro X 10.0.6, the Share menu existed on its own and let you convert your project into one or many kinds of outputs, one at a time. You had to send an entire project (a huge issue for many editors) and you had to wait for the export to complete before you could continue. All that just changed with 10.0.6.

After a lengthy delay, there will finally be a Thunderbolt expansion dock ready for actual purchase tomorrow, according to MacRumors. The Matrox DS1, first unveiled back in June and then updated in September, will be a real shipping device beginning tomorrow, with a $249 price tag.

It’s when you come to trimming on the timeline that you fully realize the difference between Lightworks and other NLEs.
Editing in Lightworks is like putting your hands on a real roll of film or a videotape, even if you don't have a Lightworks Console (like me). Using the keyboard and the mouse, you also can feel the "organic" thing; the real thing, like using a VCR's shuttle control, the play/pause buttons, and so on.

Last night on #MoChat we were fortunate enough to have Mary Poplin, Ross Shain, and Martin Brennand from Imagineer Systems with us to talk about motion tracking, and mocha in particular. If you’re not familiar with it, mocha is a planar tracking system which tracks 2D planes instead of small points. At the end of the chat, Andres Arosemena won a seat of Mocha Pro for correctly answering the trivia question “What was the first Imagineer product to introduce Planar Tracking?” (mokey)

This holiday article includes a variety of tools and technologies that allow you to convert your analog media into a digital formats. The first two sections deal with the transfer of film negatives, slides and traditional paper photos to digital files. The next section provides options for converting your audio cassettes into digital formats. The fourth section deals with the transfer of VHS video to DVD.

One Day On Earth, the collaborative film project that documented life on earth on 10/10/10 and 11/11/11, is revving up to film life around the globe tomorrow, 12/12/12, and it’s not too late to be a part of it!

3. Compromise is Sometimes Needed for a Better Film “Sometimes, as with the death row scenes on ‘Dead Man Walking’, it is better to compromise composition, lighting and perhaps even sound a little and shoot with two cameras in order to help an actor get their performance. Sometimes it is better to go wider to include a prop in frame than break an actor’s concentration.

GoPro HERO3 Black Edition
What is life without a GoPro? Even though we are editors we like to have fun with a camera every now and then and the recently updated GoPro HERO3 is an amazing camera for its price. Opt for the $400 Black Edition as it’s got everything you need right in the package.

The make-up effects industry is already on the down slope. They’re even less prepared to deal with 4K than the set craftspeople or model makers. Contemporary make-up effects cannot even stand up to conventional HD photography very well because digital renders rubber as rubber, paint as paint. It doesn’t look like alien skin. It doesn’t look like human flesh. It doesn’t look like anything but what it actually is.

Most of the new technology, 3D and 48fps, was transparent creatively to the editing process. “We would see the 3D when we conformed the scenes,” says Olssen. “Occasionally we would make allowances and alterations because of the stereoscopic depth.” So for example, they might hold shots a bit longer. Generally he says, “If you are cutting on the small size screen and then see it on a cinema big screen you often extend the wide shots a few more frames.”

In the 48-frames-per-second version of Hobbit, Middle-earth in 3D looks so crisp it’s like stepping into the foreground of an insanely gorgeous diorama. [...] At 48 fps, images appear more precise and 3D action becomes smoother, without the blur that can occur when the camera pans too quickly or objects move rapidly across the frame.

"I think the cinematography in 'All The President’s Men' is riveting, actually," he says, calling from Pittsburgh where he's currently shooting Bennett Miller's "Foxcatcher." "It’s like lots of offices and lots of fluorescents and all those things, but Gordon Willis is a master framer. He’s a master lighter. He wasn’t afraid to be so flat with the lighting in those offices.

On December 11th, Adobe announced new Photoshop features exclusive to Creative Cloud members, the availability of Creative Cloud for teams, and other news. In this article, you’ll learn more about Creative Cloud and why it might be a great choice for you, and get the scoop on the recent announcements.

Mounting cameras on sharks is risky business, though, and the video above shows just how dangerous it can be. In it, marine biologist Greg Marshall tells of his first attempt at deploying his camera onto the back of a large shark back in 1992. It didn’t go according to plan.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Jonah Rubash, Scott Reagan, Teddy Hoffman, and Kevin Larson take out the Canon C100 for test shoot. They gab about their thoughts on the new Canon Cinema EOS camera.Shot by Kevin Larson on the C100 with a Canon 16mm-35mm and Canon 24mm-70mm.

Despite the recently reduced price of RED cameras, each model still requires a lot of (pricey) accessories. We’ve pointed this out from the very beginning, but now we’ve gone further and compiled some realistic shooting packages at three different levels: a “cheapest possible ONE MX” list by Aaron Rich, an “owner/operator SCARLET” package by myself, and a “full professional EPIC” package by Timur Civan.

Shot CinemaDNG and processed through Resolve V8 with mild correction, making the blacks sit on black and whites just on clipping and I added a little saturation. No shot-to-shot grading though as I rendered to ProRes 422 (HQ) and then cut the shots in FCPx. So remember this is the V1 camera, the same camera that shot the other public BMD footage. In other words, the very first camera.

We’ve got great news! As of December 3rd 2012, we have dropped the price of Story Plus from $24.99 USD/month to $9.99USD/month (with comparable price reductions in all other regions). You can purchase a Story Plus subscription here.

If you are looking for the fastest-possible RAID, the Drobo 5D is not it. However, you only need that speed if you are editing large multicam events with video stored in ProRes format.If you need to save money, buy three drives. If you want the fastest performance, buy five drives. I was very disappointed with the performance of the unit when only four drives were installed, so avoid this configuration. I also recommend against the 2 drive configuration, which will not have performance sufficient for video editing.

With one week to go until we hit render, Dave takes you through what each member of the team is up to at Realm HQ. From digital set extensions to organising the premiere, the team is working every waking minute to get the films finished in time for the upcoming world premiere.

"They make a big thing about the franchise not being about CG, but I liked the way [Oscar-winning] director Sam Mendes worked," explains Jon Neill, Cinesite's visual effects supervisor. "You can tell he's from the theater the way he would get everyone together, including the technical people, and walk through the whole sequence."

On New Years Eve 2009, I looked at all the work I had done outside my day job and was pretty pleased with myself. I asked myself how many hours a week I had managed to devote exclusively to my private ambitions of drawing, painting and creative writing. The answer was a paltry 2 hours per week.

Did Movie Studios Really Demand Google Remove Legitimate Links to Amazon, Facebook, and Wikipedia? | Fruzsina Eördögh | SlateI recently had a post that is - essentially - a link to a press release taken down due to a DCMA complaint, which has proved puzzling as the company denies they filed a complaint, and Google/Blogger hasn't responded to my queries about what the complaint is, or who files it. In the mean time, I'm amused that studio's are having legitimate things of their own taken down:

Earlier this week, TorrentFreak noticed that in early November, a bunch of studios apparently requested the removal of links to their own Facebook pages, Wikipedia pages, and websites—even movie reviews.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Canon has issued a couple of service advisories to notify customers of known issues with the 6D and 1D X DSLRs. The former camera has a YouTube problem, while the latter has some autofocus issues for certain customers.

Chinese TV and appliance company Changhong, who is looking to grow market share in Australia, is set to launch a low cost 65” Ultra High Definition Smart LED TV next year. The new TV will be shown at the 2013 CES Show in Las Vegas.ChannelNews understands the TV will retail for sub $6,000 and be launched in the second half of 2013.

Like it or not, it’s coming. Crews will get smaller and the technical barriers to capturing stunning imagery will disappear. And even well before that we’ll be at the point of good enough: the mp3 of filming will emerge and serve 99% of our needs (hell, you could even argue we’re already there in some respects).

XDCAM Essentials Episode 3 looks at two of the many time-saving advantages of the XDCAM workflow. In Part 1 Doug Jensen demonstrates how to program and use the Customer Clip Naming and Last Clip Delete functions and how proper use of these features will help you to work faster and more efficiently. Doug will present additional benefits of XDCAM workflow in upcoming episdoes of XDCAM Essentials.

Some of us have been waiting for this since the camera stat rumors in September, and others since the GH2 was hacked. Despite earlier news of a slightly delayed release date, it looks like Panasonic has officially begun shipping the GH3. If you’re just now learning about the GH3, be sure to check out the camera’s stats and past videos.

Indefatigable in their desire to find larger and larger audiences for their film, Adam Bhala Lough (Bomb the System, Weapons) and and his co-director Ethan Higbee have been self-distributing The Upsetter: The Life & Music of Lee “Scratch” Perry for what feels like an eternity. The film had its world premiere at SXSW in 2008...

Our test was done in the following way: a TIFF Color bar was used as source. This file was encoded to Apple ProRes in two sizes HD (1920×1080) and HalfHD (960×540). Two flavors of ProRes were used, 422HQ and 4444, so 4 files in total for each application. All ProRes files were then imported and compared to the original TIFF source. If there were a color shift this was marked in red in the test chart (the shift could differ in appearance but that is not explored further in this test). If the file matched it was marked green.

Above all, Mendes needs a good story: "Directing depends upon a story's rhythm – a good story should breathe in and out." Or, in Bond's case, hold its breath? He explains that Skyfall's opening 10 minutes, involving three Turkish locations, took more than two months to film. He talks about shooting in "the disused tube platforms under Charing Cross in stygian darkness".

Now Teradek has upped its game and introduced the Bolt, a wireless HD-SDI monitoring system. I can say that I am amazed at the quality of the image, total lack of latency, and rock solid signal. This unit has so far performed as well as high-tend units priced a 5x to 10x the price.

It was this forward thinking that led me to the show—and I knew the innovation would continue when Ircink agreed to let me introduce my Nikon DSLRs to his production workflow. The show has been traditionally shot on Sony’s EX1, but the shallow depth-of-field offered by the DSLRs really allowed the food—the show’s main character—to shine.

The RED Dragon sensor needs to be directly compared to 65mm film.The Dragon has more resolution than 65mm film when scanned at 4K.The Dragon has more dynamic range than film… by a lot. 65mm film has about 14.5 stops. The Dragon has an easy 16 stops… without sweating.

Embrace denial. Forget the fact that you still have a million things to do and hardly any time to do it. So pop in a copy of The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, or Star Trek: The Next Generation. In my single days, I used to watch Pink Floyd’s The Wall whenever getting over a heart-break. That film works wonders for drowning your sorrows or stress. Or, you can write a blog post.

By choosing a setting it is possible to convert in real time between a range of industry formats such as 3G HD SDI, HDMI 1.3, Component, S-video, Composite, SDI Embedded Audio, Stereo Unbalanced Audio and AES/EBU digital audio.

I just spent some time going through all of the feature requests that we’ve received over the past year. This post consists of two parts: first, some notes about the feature requests from last year that we were able to incorporate into After Effects CS6 (including in some recent updates); second, a list of the top feature requests for this year, with some notes about each.

Therein lies the point. Ae is strong because we continue to focus on its strength (animating / compositing elements and movement over time). In fact, it’s why I believe that the applications could work even better together in the future vs. one application trying to become the other. By taking this approach, Ae has a ton of innovation to offer in the future with the timeline being its core.

There are no new features in this version, 10.0.7, which is in keeping with other updates sequences from Apple. A major feature release is followed with a bug-fix release.While the update is free, I’ll probably wait a couple of days to make sure this doesn’t cause any new problems before updating my production systems. You can access the update via the Mac App Store.

If you wonder which DSLRs are usually used by Reuters reporters and what are the main settings, here are some pie charts that you might find extremely interesting and informative. You will not be surprised that professional photographers are not using an iPhone while doing their job (even though it can take amazingly good pictures), but it can be surprising that the Canon 5D Mark II is still so popular.

With everything going digital, these smaller theaters are starting to disappear unless they make serious monetary investments, and that’s exactly the situation that Cinefamily in Los Angeles is going through right now. Click through to check out their Kickstarter launch video

Tastes vary, to be sure, and I have no doubt that some people will embrace the precise, knife-edged shadows, the uniform richness of detail and the startling depth of field, in which both the near foreground and the distant background appear in identical focus. But for me, at least, this cinematic innovation apparently meant to create an atmosphere of magic realism makes the whole thing look immensely more fake.